Fear of Failure: How to Overcome Fear in Business

Fear of failure can be both crippling and motivating. When crippling, it can prevent us from achieving our goals and dreams. When motivating, it helps push you to the next level to achieve greatness. But it’s hard to know how much fear is needed to succeed. Or how much it’s setting us back. To overcome fear of failure, we first need to understand what’s causing it.

Causes of Fear of Failure

You’re a perfectionist

Perfectionism can take many forms.

Do you rewrite your product descriptions repeatedly?

Are you spending more than three weeks making sure your store looks perfect instead of marketing it?

Have you told yourself that it’s all or nothing?

Did you beat yourself up after your first ad failed?

Perfectionism can hold you back.

It can make you do the same tasks repeatedly without ever making progress. You might delay your business’ launch because everything isn’t just right. And so you prevent yourself from achieving the success you deserve.

When I built my first store four years ago, I didn’t just build one store.

I built four.

At the same time.

I added 600 products to one of my online stores. I kept adding all this work to my plate, instead of focusing on the marketing. But I was also afraid of marketing my brand and getting no sales. After my first six months of entrepreneurship, I made $100. And I was forced to return to a 9 to 5.

Why?

Because I spent more time perfecting my store than growing it.

Don’t fall into the same trap.

But perfectionism can also be a great thing.

After my first Facebook ad failed four years ago, I was so embarrassed, I took action.

I spent all my time reading articles about the psychology of Facebook ads. What colors performed best on Facebook? What types of pictures stood out? Which audience should I be targeting? What was the copy format that worked well? It led to my second ad converting at 0.04 cents.

You’re afraid of criticism

In a perfect world, we’d all get high fives for everything we do.

Found time in your busy schedule to exercise? Here’s a high five for that!

Managed to work on your business after putting your kids to sleep? High five to you!

Had a great day today? Yup, here’s another one!

Landed your first sale? Well that deserves two of these bad boys!

Unfortunately, we don’t always get praise for our little wins from customers or our friends and family.

But we’ll definitely get criticism for a small mistakes, big ones and everything in between. Our fear of failure grows with each piece of criticism we receive.

One piece of negative feedback and we become personally hurt.

One customer refund and we fall apart.

“It’s over,” we tell ourselves.

But, it’s not over.

You can redeem yourself. Or you’ll learn how you can improve, build a better business and become a better entrepreneur. You’ll quickly learn to master the art of customer service instead.

Instead of ‘I suck at running a business. I got a refund on my first sale,’ it should become ‘I got my first refund, what can I do to improve? I’m going to ask the customer who refunded the product for feedback. Then, I’ll use the feedback I receive to make better decisions. While I can’t prevent all refunds from happening, I can work towards keeping it within the 1% average.’

You’re insecure

While daydreaming about becoming an entrepreneur or store owner, you picture yourself as confident, successful and rich. Every idea in your head is genius. ‘I’m born to do this,’ you tell yourself.

But then you tell your parents, best friend or coworker your brilliant idea.

And they hate it.

‘That’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard.’

‘You want to quit your job to become unemployed?’

‘The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. And honey, you’re poor.’

‘OMG. That’s your business? I thought you sent it as a joke.’

And all of a sudden, every bit of insecurity you could ever feel about yourself comes rushing in.

It completely takes over.

The confidence you daydreamed about? Gone.

The success you’ve always wanted? Delayed.

And the money? It’s not there.

You made the rookie new entrepreneur mistake. You sought validation from those you love.

While I hope most of you have a supportive network of people around you, not all of you will. I had a family member call me a joke. My mom kept telling me she would be proud of me if I got a real job. And I had a stranger tell me that high school dropouts can’t be successful.

It took four years to get to the point where no one questions me anymore.

The day you call it quits is the day you officially become a failure. By calling it quits, I don’t mean shutting down your store to work on another one. That’s pivoting. I’m talking about refusing to ever try again.

Maybe your first business isn’t a winner. Or in my case, my first six weren’t winners.

But then one day, a light bulb goes off.

Everything you’ve learned from your mistakes creates this clear path.

And BAM!

Suddenly, you understand what it takes to create a successful business.

You figure out Facebook ads.

Traffic starts pouring in.

Your conversion rate increases.

Customers start tagging you on Instagram when they receive their product.

And you finally start to realize how amazing success is.

Signs of Fear of Failure

There are a number of tell-tale signs that you’re experiencing fear of failure.

You might start trying to lower people’s expectations.

Your goals get smaller.

You start underselling yourself.

You’ll even start retracting some of the statements and claims you once made.

Your goal of making $1000 in your first month, suddenly changes to ‘one sale in a month.’

You know you’re better than this.

Don’t lower your standards.

You’ve got this.

If you feel like no one believes in you today, just know I do.

I see success stories every day. Yours is next.

You feel sick and stressed

The enthusiasm you once had for running your business starts to disappear when you experience fear of failure.

Maybe you start experiencing anxiety or panic attacks.

Or you start feeling physically sick.

You become so overwhelmed by taking the next step that you just can’t do it.

Break it up into baby steps.

Instead of having 100 products on your store at launch, add 25.

Instead of spending all your money on Facebook ads, spend $20.

Rephrase the language you use.

I like the word ‘experiment’. It’s helped me lower my anxiety.

‘My first experiment with Facebook ads performed poorly. For my next experiment, I’m going to…’

You’re thoughts are overwhelmingly negative

You’re so talented. Smart. Creative. I mean if anyone is going to kickass in business, it’s you.

Seriously. I mean it.

But sometimes, you’ve got to tell that little voice in your head to just…

If you’ve failed 20x before, don’t make the same mistakes you once did.

Channel that fear into something positive.

Failure is good for business. And for success.

How to Overcome Fear of Failure in Business

You’ll need to learn how to overcome fear of failure if it’s preventing you from success.

Visualize success

Visualizing success has been proven to help entrepreneurs achieve their goals. About 66% of entrepreneurs believe that visualizing their goals can help them create their business plans.

Picture yourself going through the process of achieving your goals.

What are the steps you take in your head?

Create a vision board of your goals.

If you have to cut out pictures from magazines and stick it to a piece of paper do it.

I like to add my vision board as my desktop background image.

Write your goals down. Don’t forget the end date too. Set a realistic goal like ‘Make $100,000 in revenue in 2018’ if you’re starting out today.

When you look back at that paper a year from now, you’ll likely be amazed by how you actually achieved a goal you thought you forgot about.

Remove yourself from failure

Fail fast.

When you fail, immediately take the lesson out of the failure.

Then, remember the lesson.

But forget the failure.

It’s easy to get sucked into a vortex where all you see are the endless streams of failures you’ve experienced.

Detach yourself from the failures.

In the future, you just need to remember what the lesson is.

Focus on your wins

On my laptop I have an achievements folder. It has screenshots of all my big and little wins. Milestones I hit in ecommerce, positive comments I got from writing on Oberlo, kind messages from friends on social media.

Create your own achievements folder. Add it to your desktop.

On good days, add to it.

On bad days, look through it.

You’ll be amazed at how much you’ve accomplished in such little time.

Pay attention to how much you’ve learned

Your mistakes are going to teach you so many lessons.

Extract the lessons from each mistake you’ve made and remember them.
Write it down if you have to.

And when you move forward on your next project, do so with confidence.

Because business people who make mistakes become the best entrepreneurs.

It’s like reading a book.

The more you read, the more knowledgeable you become.

And the more you fail, the more experienced you become.

Those experiences are what will turn you from an average person into an expert.

Set realistic goals

Only you can stop you from dreaming big.

But sometimes when your goals seem unattainable right now, you delay yourself.

The world needs you to set a high bar.

To dream big.

So if your goal is to help 1,000,000 customers, but you haven’t launched your store…

Start small but with the dream goal in mind.

How many customers do I need to get today to achieve my goal in 5, 10 or 20 years?

Maybe in your first week, you set out to get five sales.

And then escalate your growth from there.

Setting mini goals for your big goals is what can help make success more attainable.

Be honest about the worst case scenario

Our mind can build us up to be a rockstar.

Or break us down until we’re dirt.

Sometimes it imagines these extreme worst case scenarios that aren’t going to happen.

Have you been in a plane crash every time you’ve boarded a plane?

If you’re reading this, probably not.

But you’ve probably thought about it before taking off on your first flight.

The odds of you crashing and burning in business are low.

Our imagination can sometimes get the best of us.

Don’t invest $1,000 in your first advertising campaign if you’ve never created an ad and have a tight budget.

If you get a negative email from a customer and it makes you mad, respond tomorrow instead. It’ll prevent you from reacting emotionally.

Use your best friend Google to help you learn business law so your business is run legally.

You’re so smart.

Don’t act like you haven’t read a million articles about starting an online business.

I know you’ve done your homework.

There’s a 99.9% chance that the worst case scenario isn’t going to happen.

You’re ready.

Is failure even bad?

When Sara Blakely was growing up her dad would ask her “What have you failed at this week?” Her father would be disappointed if she didn’t have anything that week.

He encouraged her to fail.

She credits most of her success as a billionaire to failure.

To Sara Blakely, failure has less to do with the outcome and more to do with the effort.

Failure is what helps you make progress.

Face your fears every day

Every day try something new.

Experiment constantly.
Avoid having all of your eggs in one basket.

Don’t rely solely on one tactic to make money online.

Mix it up.

Having multiple streams of revenue for your business makes the losses less noticeable.

After all, with every goal I achieve, I’m able to reach out and help another person in need.

Every time I doubt myself, I will remind myself of how far I’ve come.

The person I was yesterday isn’t as strong or intelligent as the one I am today.

I have everything I’ll ever need to achieve my goals.

If I need money, I’ll make it come to me.

If I need help, I’ll connect with the right people.

And if I need purpose, I’ll find it in those suffering around me.

I have the power to change the world around me.

And I’m going to start today.

Famous Failures

Steve Jobs – Apple

Steve Jobs was once considered a failed businessman.

He was fired from Apple, a company he created.

After his failure, he launched a new company Pixar which went on to become a huge success.

At the same time, Apple started failing.

And he was brought back as CEO.

Steve Jobs once said, “I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.”

Walt Disney – The Walt Disney Company

Walt Disney, the mastermind behind one of the most beloved brands, was once fired for “not being creative enough.”

So he created his first business Laugh-o-gram Studios.

It went bankrupt.

He eventually went on to win 32 Academy Awards.

When reflecting on his failures, Disney said, “I think it’s important to have a good hard failure when you’re young. I learned a lot out of that. Because it makes you kind of aware of what can happen to you. Because of it I’ve never had any fear in my whole life when we’ve been near collapse and all of that. I’ve never been afraid. I’ve never had the feeling I couldn’t walk out and get a job doing something.”

Mary Kay Ash – Mary Kay Cosmetics

Mary Kay became an entrepreneur during a time where it was unacceptable to have women in the workforce.

However, after her failed marriage, she needed to support her three children.

And she had no skills.

She found a position as a salesperson and was eventually promoted to National Sales Director.

However, she struggled to move beyond this role.

And her male assistant was making twice her salary.

So she quit.

With $5000 to her name, she bought a skin care recipe, opened a storefront and launched her first business.

Her first nine employees were her friends.

At the end of her first year in business, she had made nearly $200,000.

By 1979, her public company had made an astonishing $100 million.

Mark Kay Ash has said, “For every failure, there’s an alternative course of action. You just have to find it. When you come to a roadblock, take a detour.”

Next Steps For Making Progress in Business

Don’t let fear kills your dreams.

Whether it’s taking the first step in starting a business or moving forward with your brand’s marketing, you’re ready to do this.

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Phol Jansinger

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